Gift
by our dancing days
Summary: "And Remus Lupin - well, he just loved her." / 20 things you never knew about Nymphadora Tonks.


**20 things you never knew about Nymphadora Tonks, **or, **Gift.**

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**1. **She hated the name Nymphadora with a passion.

It was a horrible name; graceful, girly, ornate, and everything that Tonks was not, and everything that Andromeda expected her to be. She may have been burnt off the tapestry, may have married a Muggleborn, but she was still a Black.

Nymphadora wasn't. Nymphadora was a Tonks.

**2. **People rarely saw her. Well, they saw the outside; who wouldn't miss bubblegum pink hair and the carnage she left behind her? But only three people could tell you what Tonks really looked like; only three people could tell you about her mousy brown hair, dark blue eyes, aristocratic nose and less-than-adequate chest.

Luckily for her, Ted Tonks adored aristocrats, Andromeda Tonks fell in love with those exact eyes, and Remus Lupin - well, he just loved her.

**3. **Tonks first performed an Unforgivable on the third day of her Auror training. The other trainees and trainers were out on the field, and she, as backup, was cowering behind a skip attempting to remain invisible.

The poor Death Eater who fired a curse at Alastor Moody didn't even see it coming.

**4. **She had a scar on her back from falling over one of the Hogwarts banisters in her fourth year. The boy who pushed her was a member of the Dolohov family.

**5. **When Teddy was born, he had wild black hair and amber eyes, and Andromeda cried a lot harder than Tonks did. She never said why.

**6. **Alastor Moody first cast the Imperius Curse on her as part of her Auror training in her second year. Tonks wasn't herself for one full hour until her will broke the charm's hold. When she finally got back in control, she found herself hanging out of the window, one foot in the air and her knees bent, ready to jump.

Moody just made the other trainees dance on the table.

**7. **Her father never really understood Tonks. He got her dolls when she wanted a Potion set. He got her ballet shoes when she asked for a broom.

It wasn't that he wanted her to be anything other than who she was; he just didn't _know _who she was.

**8. **Andromeda spent a period of exactly five months convinced that she wanted to be a Healer. Tonks used to scratch herself, and heal it again as part of her own personal "training". When Andromeda caught her, she very quietly asked if she liked the look of blood.

Tonks didn't want to be a Healer after that.

**9. **Once, when it was late and the sky was in between black and white, pearly and iridescent in the moonlight, Remus whispered to her, _"You're not fooling anyone."_

Tonks pretended that she didn't know what he was talking about.

**10. **Tonks always wished she had a little brother or sister, someone to tease and protect. The moment before she died, she regretted not being able to give Teddy that opportunity.

**11. **She was never going to be a Gryffindor. Everyone was convinced she should've been; she was an Auror after all. The hat whispered to her, instead, that there were other ways to stand out than being foolish. Tonks denied it until the end.

**12. **They always told Tonks that she should go on stage - _"Such a good actor, look at her play pretend, such a good liar, wouldn't she be brilliant?" _

She wouldn't. Tonks was tired of acting.

**13. **When it came down to the cold, hard facts, Tonks had a habit of turning her mother away. It became only natural not to tell Andromeda about her Auror training, or the Order, or even dear, sweet Remus.

She found out eventually, anyway.

**14. **Tonks forgot to say goodbye, and that was that.

**15. **"No," Andromeda said tightly, looking down at Tonks and keeping an iron grip on her forearm. "No, you won't leave me too."

"But Mummy," Nymphadora Tonks slowly replied, tightening her hold on her wand, tearing her arm away from her still-calm mother and walking towards the door without looking back, "It's always _you _that does the leaving."

**16. **Instead of inheriting her mother's dark brown eyes, Tonks inherited her father's.

Ted Tonks lived life to the full, too.

**17. **Tonks was seven when her father took her out on her plastic Muggle car that her grandparents had gotten her. Tonks hated that car more than anything; she just wanted a toy broomstick. When she crashed it, she cried for three days straight.

**18. **Cousin Sirius had always been her favourite. Her father didn't know her, and her mother didn't understand. Sirius was just as wild as her; they both paid for it in the end.

**19. **The only person she allowed to call her Dora was Remus.

Because Mummy called her _Nymphadora_, Daddy called her _Nymphie_, textbooks called her _gift of the nymphs _and the rest of the world simply knew her as _Tonks. _But _Dora_; well, that was in a whole other league of its own.

**20. **Her rebellion was a foolish one. "You need me tonight."

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Please take a look at my other '20 things' - **Daffodil, Galaxy, Amazon **and **Star. **Coming up next are: **Prince, Knight, **and **Vision. **Review?~


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